DEVORIS CAUSA

© Boris Zapata

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(...) the cuisine is an exemplary metaphor of the hypocrisy of the culture. The so called cuisine art is based on a previous murder with all sorts of treacheries. If this bad savage, as the civilized man is, took away an animal or plant’s life and ate raw corpses would be pointed out as a monster able to commit shivering bestialities. But if this bad savage cuts into pieces the corpse, marinades it, garnishes it, cooks it and eats it, his crime becomes culture and deserves remem-brance, books, disquisitions, theory and almost a science of the food behaviour.There is no life without cruelty. There is no story without pain (...)

Taken from the book ‘CONTRA LOS GOURMETS’MANUEL VÁZQUEZ MONTALBÁN

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DEVORIS CAUSA

Idea and Script: Escarlata Circus.Direction: Jordi Aspa.Interpreters: Jordi Aspa and Bet Miralta.Outside glance in movement: Roberto Olivan.Artistic accompaniment - space definition: Jani Nuutinen.Characters Definition: Pierre Pilatte.Illumination design: Jep Vergés.Construction and manipulated advices: Nartxi (Txo titelles).Scenography and equipment: Diego Polognioli.Wardrobe: Lluc Castells.Musical advices: Xavier Boixader.Sound design: Audiolab.Cuisine advice: Mariona Cuadrada.Hangings: Esteve Ferrer.Electric special effects: Josep Gascó.Graphic design: Manuel Porter.Executive production: Escarlata Circus i Marcel·lí Puig.Design and big top construction: Claude Rigo – La Machine

Thanks to: Marduix, Pep Bou and Maria Tricas.

Staff

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The show is intended to be performed in front of 50 people inside our big top.Lately we have chosen a circle shape as we believe that the shape infl uences the game and the dramatic situation very much. We like confronting the public in dif-ferent situations where the evidence of the space is not really clear. From the begin-ning, as the people get into this round big top, we play with the surprise eff ect until the end, creating moments of uncertainty and confusion. The sitting down proce-dure won’t be the traditional one and neither the rest of the show.

Space

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Escarlata Circus celebrates its 23st anniversary on a cake garnished with skips, feel-ings, balances, gravity, skills, animality, cruelty, sweetness and all the ingredients of a beloved pantry.

We try to transform life, ours and yours, or else participate in a little phase of emo-tions.

Life is straight or, sometimes, tumbles. We have chosen the spiral full of strokes of fresh air that come from afterlife, filled with balances, gravity and with all senses skin-deep.

DEVORIS CAUSA means past, present, future and, above all, imagination that is the most everlasting space that exists without measures and cataloguing, the freedom space par excellence.

Show served in the privacy of a circular space where the movement’s poetry of both characters will make us travel to a future past from the undefined past perfect of the emotions. The manipulating of elements, in this case, vegetables, helps us to explain a cruel and daily story with the most tasteful scents of cuisine. The experi-mentation in the movement and the deepening in the drama of the characters who weep circus through the pores in the most unexpected moments, flavour the story in a sweet-and-sour, chilly, bitter and, even, salty way. It’s neither a cookery show nor a circus or dance or theatre performance; it is a dinner party to a daily ritual filled in intrigue, tasting, feats, movement and drama.

The flock of birds will be hypnotized by the sharp glance of their trainer. Get in this dump and let you go by the deep breaths of succulent odours. Taste everything and, then, we will talk.

Nice digestion!!!

Artistic intentions

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• Object construction and its manipulation from vegetables• Knifes and axes throwing• Theatrical game• Movement - dance• ...and above all the surprise technique

Performance registered in the human-animal, circus and greengrocer-cannibal po-etry of the three main characters of the story.Nothing is easy and nothing is what it seems. Everything is pure fiction of the reality and everything is reality in the fiction.To provoke subtlety the collective conscious highlighting the human syndrome of the sand castles, construct to destroy, live to die, do to undo, know to ignore. All these concepts, we usually build them on weak and sinking bases. In the show we play, we echo, we express them; we make existence and then disappearances, cry-ing, laughing, playing, dancing, and challenging...a claim to freedom, to imagina-tion...

*Show not recommended to children under 8-10 years old.

Disciplines used

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© Miquel Ruíz

© Anna Bosch

© Miquel Ruíz

© Anna Bosch

© Anna Bosch

© Anna Bosch

© Boris Zapata

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Very often some small format performances and little pretensions can hit the spectator sore spot rather than big productions with tens of artists and figurants…this is Escarlata Circus case. Jordi Aspa and Bet Miralta have the peculiar ability of creating moments of deep intimacy from initially daily situations that, sifted through the sieve of their stage alchemy, become surprising and unknown territories. Since they became a company 20 years ago, Aspa and Miralta lead a glance ironically loving towards the circus: we just have to remember Pell de Gallina (2000) and Llenties i Marabú (2005). Rather than closed propos-als, these versatile artists open to the spectators many stimuli that spin them in a universe located between the dream and the game. With Escarlata Circus there is no possible dis-tance: communication is immediate because it seems that everything happens by chance and, without realizing it, their unexpected event is also ours.Devoris causa is Catalonian-French co production characterized by the circle: ring, stands and scenic space, and also an argumentative circle that starts over again. When we go out from the enclosure we will remember how we have got in because others will start the same long voyage as we have done. Also the food circle, the cyclical relationship with the beings (vegetables inevitably alive) that we sacrifice to survive. This is the idea, served with resources evoke the Jean-Baptiste Thierrèe gooses and the Chaplin barber from Great Dictator, simple evocative brushstrokes done from the personal scenic language and the construction of characters by Jordi Aspa and Bet Miralta, characters in a great communion with the turkey Fridu, the genuine star of the show.

DEVORIS CAUSA. Idea and Script: Escarlata Circus. Direction: Jordi Aspa. Interpretation: Jordi Aspa, Bet Miralta and the turkey Fridu. Temporada Alta Festival, Auditori de la Mercè, 27th No-vember.

The great small things

AVUI, Monday, 1st December 2008Jordi Jané

Circus review

Press

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La Mercè Auditorium. It is Sunday, five o’clock p. m. The cold freezes the spirit. We get in with a light mood, wrapped up until the nose tip, hands in pockets. Inside, but, there is nobody there, there is nothing. Foolishly we are looking at each others, we are unpro-tected. There is a whisper like a breeze. A curtain slightly opens; a woman’s head invites us to follow her. We go in; we obey the indications and we enter in a pit dump. In front of us a huge cook with a stonemason t-shirt, baggy trousers tied with a lace and slippers; with a saucepan in the hand stirs a vegetable stew, the aromatic stink fills the atmosphere. A me-tallic arm comes out from the helmet that she wears on her head which ends up in a light flake. The tool-lamp is a lantern in the kitchen. There is a wooden bar and a burner, lots of cooking utensils and a light door behind; there is a little upholstery round table near, a hanger, chairs and a radio that murmurs. We are all crowded together, stood up, the mate and the way he looks at us fascinate us, and disgusts while he scratches the tool. We try to imagine things. Behind us a white curtain surrounds it all. With a gesture, we are invited to have a taste. The housekeeper shares cones full of an enigmatic pastry made of vegeta-bles. The man fills them up, the woman delivers inquisitively. A fifty’s music peals from the background. Suddenly the curtains raise and, behind, we see set up stands made of wood. We go there among enigmatic smiles. When we sit down we have some teaspoons so we can eat the hotchpotch. Could we be the show?From the half-light, the diabolic couple starts its clumsy dance. As if they were a couple of children reproducing circus moments in a fair, they imitate birds, they play with chairs, throw knifes, they train and hypnotize an amazing turkey...they laugh of happiness and enjoy themselves enormously; they show a tender and loving way of taken delight while sadism gestures persist constantly and disturb us. In the middle of loads of vegetables, sharps and sharpened carvings, they choose, cut, prick; mix up, do and seem a kind of...And then wielding an enormous knife in the hand and staring at us with his eyes popping out of his head...Escarlata Circus has created an unprecedented show, of primary and grotesque sense of humour, with a circus spirit and out of all classes, out of all parameters, of great original-ity and no absent of intentionally. Starting from object manipulation and giving them humanity they obtain a kind of tragic illusionism where we see our unworthy condition full of a nervous and recognized air that embarrasses the agreed limits. Both interpret-ers, Jordi Aspa and Bet Miralta, personify the most entertaining insanity while they instil a disturbing worry, always between the limit that balances the joke and the alienation. Fabulous!!

Interpreters: Escarlata Circus (Jordi Aspa and Bet Miralta).Place and date: La Mercè Auditorium, 30th November.

Vegetable Cannibal ritual

EL PUNT Wednesday, 3rd Desember 2008JOAQUIM ARMENGOL

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It is a confirmed fact that the circus is every time less for children. The evolution to a stand-ardized and European scene involves, every time more, the adults to go to the Circus, considering it as another artistic discipline. In the Devoris Causa case this evolution to ma-turity is obvious, even necessary. From the eyes of an adult is complicated to know what a child’s reaction would be in front of the Escarlata Circus show, winners of the last National Circus Awards. And this thought prevails in front of the disturbing feeling that Jordi Aspa and Bet Miralta leave when the performance is over. His character presents a kind of in-stability, or psychological disturbance, some psychosis flashes represented with shouts, spasmodic movements, hilarious but quite disturbing. And she contributes with a much sweeter contrast, until the get together in a destructive whirl that leaves a certain bad feel-ing. Without giving any details, we end up resembling one of the most impressive Goya pictures where Saturn is the main character. They are like the protagonists of The Texas Killing, but without the bloody side. There are only leaves and carrot bits. But obviously, the boys and girls might not be so impressed by value judgments about the protagonists’ characters, or they don’t find this darkness so disturbing coming from the people that mo-ments ago, made them laugh hilariously .Where there are no double interpretations is in the brilliant scenography, that transformed the inside of La Mercè into an improvised big top. The performance, when the Catalonian tour begins will be represented in ‘usual’ big tops, has been adapted these days to create the circus magic in a closed space. Benches disposed semi circularly and a stage as a trail approached the public to both actors. And just in case they were not close enough, the two clowns-to designate their work in a ‘com-mon way’-walked in many occasions around the firsts rows. We will neither reveal in this point the reasons that could take them to visit the audience so closely. And in fact, the five senses are very present in Devoris Causa: the smell of food just cooked, its taste, the touch, and obviously the most habitual ones in theatre (and circus), the hearing and the sight, they are here strongly stimulated. A proposal to enjoy intensively, but with two in-terpretations: the peculiar one, weird and even grotesque one, or the most innocent one, the children’s.

Texas Killing in a Vegetarian Style

diaridegirona.cat Monday, 1st December 2008MARTA PALLARS

Culture

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Special mention to the proposal that bring the catalans Escarlata Circus. With over 20 ye-ars experience in the circus, the adventure company now has a proposal that starts from the circus, is closer to theater and visual objects. This is the starting point of Devoris Causa, a small delicatessen in the circus that is the excuse to offer a reflection on food and human codition, original and poetic, in which plants and knives take lives.

tuesday 18 august 2009ZIRKOLIKA – REVISTA DE LAS ARTES CIRCENSESa

The Fira commitment also shows that offer a fresh look at the theatrical genre. That is what makes your Devoris Causa Escarlata Circus , a small delicatessen which renews the discourse of the circus, in a circular and intimate space built by La Machine for the occa-sion. In reality, the circus is just an excuse to offer a reflection on the food and the human condition, original and poetic, full of references daring and fun, which gives life to plants and knives through the air circulating.

thursday 3 september 2009ARTEZ

A show and wacky crazy.Devoris Causa culinary madness.... A spectacle as the circular tent that houses where things are eternally again ...... you choking with laughter. It’s full of imagination, so very cruel and crazy.

tuesday 27 october 2009La Dépêche

“Devoris Causa” is a hilarious, crazy and a little cruel, this ritual quotdien what the kitchen. The art of moving on the fate of an onion.

wednesday 28 october 2009La Dépêche du midi

...els agrada “ remoure el cor de la gent”. Ho aconsegueixen amb gairebé res. És un gènere rar i singular, dels que en diem inclassificable..

tuesday 12 january 2010RUE DU THEATRE

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Excellent and amazing show in which through the skillful manipulation of food processing and agricultural (vegetables and fruits), are suggested and violated concepts, behaviors and thoughts of the human condition. The two artists-actors-manipulators-provocative-characters invite us to a participatory contemplation can not leave us indifferent to its many rich reading levels. A festive apparently, nothing banal called for reflection on some of the problems that surround us (power, violence, male-female relationship, selfishness, submission, humiliation, sadism, cruelty, self-destruction, abandonment ..). From the cir-cus world, who have always combined with theatrical performance, Jordi Aspa (clown, animal trainer, educator, actor) and Bet Miralta (acrobat, aerialist, actress), give a further step in its successful creative career incorporating the puppet (his puppet master made of vegetables) and manipulating objects within the frame-tent also surprisingly used. A highly recommended show from 8-9 years. Do not miss it.

Fira Lleida 2010FERRAN BAILE

Couple picturesque and remarkable: Paulina and Frederick. Inveterate tourists with a look of careful and realistic role playing virtually, they were able to mingle with onlookers intri-gued, urging them to follow through the village.

LLENTIES I MARABÚA crazy story he was also allowed to live in an evening with Original tent, the soft view of happiness of a couple of fairground totally crazy. Paulina and Frederick had given way to Ludmilla and Alphonso who really put the spotlight on a quasi-communicative madness sometimes taking the public to react.

DEVORIS CAUSASame thing for the show closing on Saturday evening when Surrealism was to go through the Daily stuffed with intrigue boosts a couple who likes to do sing eggplants and do fly knives. Representations with occasional winks to the circus as games of skill and acroba-tics copies.

tuesday 27 april 2010AUDE GUILLEMIN

La Marseillase

Devoris Causa de Escarlata Circus

La Folle Histoire…

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(…) Una conexión que divierte sin importunar (…)

Lo demás es pura simpatía de los intérpretes, que enseguida logran entretener con una serie de absurdas y simpáticas demostraciones de locura. (…)

La recreación ambiental está cuidada al máximo detalle, los artilugios que intervienen en la trama son ingeniosos y detallistas y el clima es íntimo. Y todo a pesar que, aunque el trato es amable, no deja de resultar tenso en momentos. Siempre esa proximidad crea ri-gidez al espectador, que no acierta a relajarse pensando en las posibilidades que le puede acarrear. Pero precisamente eso es lo que mantiene la atención a cada nueva sorpresa. Y también esa misma vecindad acarrea una mayor intimidad con lo que sucede, provocan-do que las emociones se multipliquen. Una propuesta muy bien elaborada, y con excelen-te resultado.

thursday 3 february 2011PACO INESTROSA

La Opinión de MálagaUna experiencia íntima y con tensión

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DEVORIS CAUSA

Temporada Alta Girona – from the 27th to the 30th November 2008www.temporada-alta.net

Panorama Festival – Olotwww.pnrm.net

Excentrique Festival – Region Centre - Francewww.excentrique.org

Les Tombées de la Nuit – Rennes - Francewww.tdn.rennes.fr

Circa Circuits Auch - Francewww.circuits-circa.com

L’Usine – Tournefeuille - Francewww.lusine.net

Co-producers

Xarxa Transversal d’activitats culturals – 7 citieswww.txac.cat

Collaborators

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Contact:

ESCARLATA CIRCUS MAJOR STREET, 2508461 ST ESTEVE DE PALAUTORDERA - E+34 93 845 19 90bet@escarlata.comwww.escarlata.com